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Sunday, March 27, 2011

Flier's TSA 'grope' nightmare

Nancy Campbell


















The skies were a little too friendly for a Brooklyn woman who said her security pat-down at La Guardia Airport last week felt more like fondling than frisking.

"If I had been physically attacked, this would have been a very, very similar experience," said Nancy Campbell, 33, an urban planner who said she was traumatized by a touchy-feely female TSA agent before her flight to Washington Tuesday.

Campbell had already cleared security and was approaching the gate when the young agent stopped her, told her to drop her stuff and demanded she stand spread-eagled.


As passers-by gawked, the TSA agent patted Campbell down, touching her breasts, inner thighs and crotch, the freaked-out flier told The Post.

When she protested, the agent said, "You can either continue on flailing about, or you can let me do my job. If you don't, you can't fly."

The petite Brooklynite was in tears when she boarded her plane after the three-minute ordeal.

Hers is just one of more than 1,000 complaints heard since Nov. 1, when the Transportation Security Administration started sending some passengers through full-body scanners to better detect explosives. Those who refused the scan would face a more vigorous pat-down.

But Campbell says she was never asked to step through a scanner. The guard provided no other options to the random pat-downs at the gate.

Putting passengers through enhanced pat-downs after they've already cleared security is "very, very strange," said Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel for the ACLU.

Campbell said two other women were groped during the random checks at Gate 18.

Ann Davis, a TSA spokeswoman, said the agency has randomly screened bags and travelers at gates since 2008.

Davis would not say if the pat-down described by Campbell broke agency protocols or was overly intrusive. When asked about the rules, Davis said she could not discuss them because of security concerns.

"We will certainly look into the specifics of this passenger's complaint. Officers are trained to conduct these pat-downs in a professional manner," she said.

The TSA has received 900 complaints from travelers who underwent or witnessed pat-downs and another 4,515 from those against the public friskings in general.

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